Implementation and evaluation

Tools for Ensuring Implementation and Application of EU Law and Evaluation of their Effectiveness

Client: European Parliament

The problems of implementation and enforcement of EU law have been longstanding. The Commission has therefore developed an EU policy on implementation and enforcement of EU law which includes measures to promote compliance before initiating infringement procedures.

The aim of the study was to assess key aspects of the implementation of EU law and the effectiveness of certain tools developed to promote compliance with EU law more systematically and consistently throughout all EU policies.

The study identified and described trends in transposition regarding the transposition of EU law and the reasons for Member States’ failure to transpose on time. The study focused on the situation in seven representative Member States (Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) and in four main policy areas: environment, citizenship and fundamental rights, judicial cooperation, and internal market. T

he study analysed selected ex-ante and ex-post ‘compliance promoting’ transposition and implementation tools, looking across the board at the correlation tables, scoreboards, committees, transposition and implementation plans, package meetings or national and EU inspections alongside the pre-infringement mechanisms (CHAP and EU Pilot) and the infringement proceedings.

It provided an evaluation of their effectiveness in promoting compliance with EU law. Finally, Milieu’s study provided conclusions, highlighted best practices and proposed recommendations on how to improve the existing tools or to decide which tools should be introduced in order to ensure a more effective and timely implementation and application of EU law.

The key findings of the Study were presented at the European Parliament and fed into the European Parliament report on the implementation of EU law reacting to the Commission annual report on monitoring the application of EU law (2012).

Recommendations in the report have been proposed for changes in existing procedures that would be implemented in the next legislature, with a new elected EU Parliament and new Commission.